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"My Xbox 360 Died and I Lived to tell the story" Official Thread

seanoff

Member
There must be ways to answer those questions better.

He avoided every question on the quality of the product and what is a vast majority 65% 80% 97%. The last of those numbers would be acceptable, the first 2 not so much.

I will not consider buying one until this improves, but MS doesn't appear to think there is a problem.
 
Hello.

This morning when I started up my 360 to play some Guitar Hero II I was treated to some spectacular visual effects. Is anyone aware of Microsoft applying an old broken black and white TV filter with an update? If not I'm thinking the GPU is about to give up. Restarted the 360 and things turned back to normal, but I know it's only a matter of time.

Coincidentally my PC just kicked it. Completely and utterly dead it is. It's so dead you can't even turn it off. So finally my PS3 gets some workout. How the hell do you open a new window?
 

MCD

Junior Member
VibratingDonkey said:
Hello.

This morning when I started up my 360 to play some Guitar Hero II I was treated to some spectacular visual effects. Is anyone aware of Microsoft applying an old broken black and white TV filter with an update? If not I'm thinking the GPU is about to give up. Restarted the 360 and things turned back to normal, but I know it's only a matter of time.

Coincidentally my PC just kicked it. Completely and utterly dead it is. It's so dead you can't even turn it off. So finally my PS3 gets some workout. How the hell do you open a new window?

Yes, your GPU could be loose or something due to overheating.

send it to MS or send it to anyone capable of fixing it.

or fix it yourself.
 
McDragon said:
Yes, your GPU could be loose or something due to overheating.

send it to MS or send it to anyone capable of fixing it.

or fix it yourself.
We have nifty consumer rights in Sweden. Therefore Microsoft are forced by law to comply to my wishes. That is to give me a brand new 360. I own them bitches. :D

Which is probably why they've been treating me quite well. But it's weird, it's like they actually give a crap about keeping their customers here. Gave me a bunch of free stuff when my last 360 began its breaking down procedure. Like $200 worth, and I'm not kidding.

I solved my opening windows problem btw, started Firefox. The PS3 browser sucks beyond belief.

Anyhow, I'm gonna see if I can properly break the 360 now by leaving it turned on for a couple of hours.

edit
Almost forgot, about 5 minutes after I wrote my previous reply I got an "Unreadable disc" error. Hail the mighty 360! Think it's my fifth or sixth DRE. And I don't know if it's me or if it's actually getting worse. Haven't scratched ant discs though. Woohoo!
 

ORANGUTAN

Banned
VibratingDonkey said:
We have nifty consumer rights in Sweden. Therefore Microsoft are forced by law to comply to my wishes. That is to give me a brand new 360. I own them bitches. :D

Which is probably why they've been treating me quite well. But it's weird, it's like they actually give a crap about keeping their customers here. Gave me a bunch of free stuff when my last 360 began its breaking down procedure. Like $200 worth, and I'm not kidding.
F*ck.. can Sweden get any better? Some of the hottest natural, Nordic blondes in the world, one of the most liberal countries in the world with one of the highest Atheist (intelligence) rates, and best Xbox 360 warranty rights. It's like the ultimate country. Weed is probably legalized too? How hard is it to learn the Swedish language?
 

Piper Az

Member
since my box gave me 3 red lights, i'm considering getting a new one - which retail has the best return policy without any extended warranty? ugh...:)
 

MCD

Junior Member
@VibratingDonkey

Clean the lens or at least tell MS about your DRE problems so they can clean it for you.

that should fix it.
 

oxygenal

Member
ORANGUTAN said:
F*ck.. can Sweden get any better? Some of the hottest natural, Nordic blondes in the world, one of the most liberal countries in the world with one of the highest Atheist (intelligence) rates, and best Xbox 360 warranty rights. It's like the ultimate country. Weed is probably legalized too? How hard is it to learn the Swedish language?

Don´t forget that we have very friendly ice bears here too.

watch_4_ice_bear_aethlos_-785757.jpg
 

CorwinB

Member
3rd one juste bite the dust here, after working pretty well since last December... This would be funny if it weren't so sad. And so maddening. Will call tech support tomorrow, this thing is still under warranty.

This is the first time I get the 3 red rings, though. Previous two were content with freezing.
 

Odoul

Member
This is about to be six weeks without my system. And I can't ****ing track it.

On the Xbox website all it says is that it's in warranty and not currently being serviced(WTF?). The UPS site only says it was delivered to the Texas plant no mention of it coming back to Michigan.

If I can find someone to take this system off my hands for 250 when I get it back I think I'm done.
 

Piper Az

Member
Just got a new 360 - manufacturing date: July/06...does this mean it's going to go kaput!??? Does the date matter in terms of quality? (I know that the Elites have been faluty too).
 

Bildi

Member
jhferry said:
Can anyone tell me how to do this flashlight trick to see I they installed a new heatsink?
Stand in a dark room and shine a torch in the end that doesn't have a hard drive. Hold the torch right up against the dark grey plastic and you'll be able to see the insides. The heatsink with the 2 inch long copper tube down the side is the CPU heatsink and the new heatsink will be between that and the front of the console. If there's a big empty gap there and you can see the side of the DVD drive at the other end of the box, you don't have one.

Oh, and you don't have to stand up - that was just a figure of speach.

Piper Az said:
Just got a new 360 - manufacturing date: July/06...does this mean it's going to go kaput!??? Does the date matter in terms of quality?
Rest easy. They're all shit.
 

Kolgar

Member
So can we lay down some "best practices" for keeping our 360s alive?

It occurred to me that my Premium worked well (maybe a DRE or two) while I kept it sitting horizontally outside my entertainment center where it was surrounded by open air. A few months after placing it on the shelf, however, Red Ring of Death.

So, keep it outside, either on a side table or on a box in front of your entertainment center? Mine's sitting on the box the PS3 came in right now. :lol

Also, am I dooming my Elite to death by placing the HD DVD drive on top of it? I got down and felt it last night during a session of online GRAW, and the hottest parts of the box were in the back center of the machine. It also felt quite hot directly beneath the HD DVD player.

I've since removed the HD player and placed it to the side of my 360.

Here's what my entertainment center looks like. Plenty of airflow for most consumer electronics, but perhaps not enough for Microsoft's console?

 

Piper Az

Member
Bildi said:
Rest easy. They're all shit.

Exactly. I guess all this "all xbox will die" talk finally got into my head. Last night I found myself not enjoying my new box but being super anxious about its eventual red rings and whatnot. Then I just couldn't keep it after spending big bucks on it. The inevidible red rings were driving me nuts. So, the box is being returned for refund. Until there's solid quality improvement, no 360 for me...nice going MSFT.
 

Rorschach

Member
Still waiting on my coffin...


Kolgar said:
So can we lay down some "best practices" for keeping our 360s alive?


I would tell you to keep your HDDVD player off of it and to keep it in an open area, but it's all futile. I've kept it well aired and in the open and I have nothing to show for it but 3 broken 360s. It doesn't matter what you do. It's a manufacturing problem.

That said, it couldn't hurt! ..unless someone trips over it and drops it on the floor. Then it will hurt...
 

tha_con

Banned
My question is how many of you are willing to vote with your wallets and not buy / repair your 360's? While I understand you probably will never get your money back on purchased games and accessories, how many of you would be willing to 'force' MS (per se) to finally look into the problem and acknowledge it?

While I know the impact this would have is extremely minimal and would have no real world application, nor would it effect the business practices of MS so long as the 360 continues to sell well, I wonder how many people are 'bitter' enough to do this.

I don't think I would, lol.
 
Bildi said:
Stand in a dark room and shine a torch in the end that doesn't have a hard drive. Hold the torch right up against the dark grey plastic and you'll be able to see the insides. The heatsink with the 2 inch long copper tube down the side is the CPU heatsink and the new heatsink will be between that and the front of the console. If there's a big empty gap there and you can see the side of the DVD drive at the other end of the box, you don't have one.

Oh, and you don't have to stand up - that was just a figure of speach.


Rest easy. They're all shit.

Did you do the flashlight trick? Do you have the new heat sink on your console?

I pressed the flashlight flush against the side without the hard drive. You have to peer around the grille holes and look towards the front of the console. It takes a couple of seconds to get a good angle. You will see the CPU heatsink and the new heatsink should be in front of it.

Nothing but empty space in mine.

redring.jpg



tha_con said:
My question is how many of you are willing to vote with your wallets and not buy / repair your 360's? While I understand you probably will never get your money back on purchased games and accessories, how many of you would be willing to 'force' MS (per se) to finally look into the problem and acknowledge it?

While I know the impact this would have is extremely minimal and would have no real world application, nor would it effect the business practices of MS so long as the 360 continues to sell well, I wonder how many people are 'bitter' enough to do this.

I don't think I would, lol.

I just took it up the a$$ like a man. No amount of bitching and complaining makes a difference to them and as a consumer we really do not have much of a path to take. Microsoft is a big company and they are trying to put forth the facade that they care and take care of issues. Anyone in this thread knows reality is otherwise.

Everyone writes people who have issues off as a vocal minority until their console breaks and they are railroaded by MS.

I can just take solace in the fact that when the next iteration of Microsoft's console comes along I will give the competition more consideration that I would of given them had I not run into these issues.

I also make sure to let everyone I can know what they are getting into before they buy a 360.
 
sado | AggravatedGamers said:
If anyone is curious I am now waiting on my 12th 360 to arrive.

I demand pictures of your entertainment center.

You must be part of that vocal minority who keeps their 360 in a closed entertainment center with a space heater pointed on it. It is also probably sitting on top of a very large magnet.....diagonally.

You have nobody to blame but yourself.
 

tim1138

Member
My original 360 (got it in April of last year) crapped out over the weekend, never got the red rings, but the GPU is fried. Its not under warranty anymore, so I think I'm gonna wait until after E3 to replace it and see if MS announces a price drop.
 
tim1138 said:
My original 360 (got it in April of last year) crapped out over the weekend, never got the red rings, but the GPU is fried. Its not under warranty anymore, so I think I'm gonna wait until after E3 to replace it and see if MS announces a price drop.

The 360 is really Microsoft's attempt to introduce the disposable console concept.
 

sado

Y'know, things break...
FirstInHell said:
I demand pictures of your entertainment center.

You must be part of that vocal minority who keeps their 360 in a closed entertainment center with a space heater pointed on it. It is also probably sitting on top of a very large magnet.....diagonally.

You have nobody to blame but yourself.

Why do I bother, ill say more later when I can.
 

Core Zero

Member
tha_con said:
My question is how many of you are willing to vote with your wallets and not buy / repair your 360's? While I understand you probably will never get your money back on purchased games and accessories, how many of you would be willing to 'force' MS (per se) to finally look into the problem and acknowledge it?

While I know the impact this would have is extremely minimal and would have no real world application, nor would it effect the business practices of MS so long as the 360 continues to sell well, I wonder how many people are 'bitter' enough to do this.

I don't think I would, lol.

Well, after having only replaced mine once (under warranty) and reading about the problems here, I won't be giving MS another cent for hardware, and I'm reluctant to buy any software either, knowing that eventually it will be useless.

I'm extremely glad I bought a replacement plan for my console (they actually just refund the cost in a gift card). I'll keep sending mine back to MS under warranty to make them pay for shipping and labor to fix at least, but as soon as it breaks out of warranty I'm probably done, unless MS takes major steps to fix the hardware permanently by then.

So, I'm at least one person who won't take this from MS.
 
my box arrived thursday according to the tracking info. lets see... i called on the 7th and it was sitting at my door on the 14th. that's not bad, but isn't good either (the coffin should've shipped on friday the 8th instead of waiting until moday the 11th). dunno when i'm going to send it in.

anyone know how long your repair order is open for?
 

Bildi

Member
Piper Az said:
So, the box is being returned for refund. Until there's solid quality improvement, no 360 for me...nice going MSFT.
Good idea dude. It's a constant double-edged sword. Great games, but I always worry it's going to die and that causes me to not enjoy gaming as much (on the whole). Eventually they'll get more reliable (well, common sense would say MS will do something eventually) and you'll be able to pick up all these great games for cheap.

Kolgar said:
So can we lay down some "best practices" for keeping our 360s alive?
My first one died while being horizontal in an entertainment center space similar to yours but the entertainment center was closed at the back. It lasted about 9 months or so. So my second and third ones I put on top of the entertainment center in a vertical position to allow the side where the MB sits to dissipate heat. Second one (refurb) died after six days, so on the third one (they repaired the refurb) I still have it vertical but have put some spacers underneath about 5mm high so hopefully it draws more air through the dark grey plastic base. I'll post a pic later.

FirstInHell said:
Nothing but empty space in mine.
Same here. No heatsink for me. :(
 

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
Tips:

1) Put your 360 horizontally always.
2) Allow lots of airflow behind and by the sides
3) Never leave games inside the drive
4) Don't move the console while its working and has a game inside

After Warranty

1)Open it and do the X Clamp fix :D
 

Rorschach

Member
Relix said:
Tips:

1) Put your 360 horizontally always.
2) Allow lots of airflow behind and by the sides
3) Never leave games inside the drive
4) Don't move the console while its working and has a game inside

After Warranty

1)Open it and do the X Clamp fix :D
Your "after warranty" advice denotes that tips 1 and 3 are placebos. 2 and 4 are common sense. It tells you that in the manual for Pete's sake.
 

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
Rorschach said:
Your "after warranty" advice denotes that tips 1 and 3 are placebos. 2 and 4 are common sense. It tells you that in the manual for Pete's sake.

Most people don't read the manual and end up with scratched discs lol. And yeah, they are placebos, to delay the inevitable :lol
 

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
VibratingDonkey said:
Trying to kill it with the Hour of Victory demo so I can say the game is so terrible it killed my 360.

This demo is the last thing I played before my system died, so I like to say this.
 
VibratingDonkey said:
Almost forgot, about 5 minutes after I wrote my previous reply I got an "Unreadable disc" error. Hail the mighty 360! Think it's my fifth or sixth DRE. And I don't know if it's me or if it's actually getting worse. Haven't scratched any discs though. Woohoo!
Should not have said that... :lol

This brand new bug popped up in Saints Row and I had to examine it. A pretty large area was affected by some sort of mystical energy that made things vanish and textures fugly. You could tell where it started by a weird texture seam. I was driving alongside what I thought was its border with my homeys and all of a sudden the car disappeared like usual. Only this time it disappeared to the tones of a beautiful *GA-GACK* coming from inside the 360. That didn't sound like fun so I quit to the dash and ejected the disc, and sure enough, two pretty darn big scratches on the edge.

Totally bananas. My 360 apparently suffers from two known 360 issues simultaneously. The funny thing is that this all started after I had insulted Todd Holmdahl. Is it possible he knows the art of black magic? And my PC died too. Luckily it seems like he can't touch the PS3.

Anyhow, I think I'm gonna have to send this one in before I get the RLOD. Don't wanna risk it scratching any games I actually care about. I think there's a possibility I might run into trouble though. Even though I live in Sweden, Microsoft apparently refuses to acknowledge the disc scratching issue...
 
VibratingDonkey said:
Should not have said that... :lol

This brand new bug popped up in Saints Row and I had to examine it. A pretty large area was affected by some sort of mystical energy that made things vanish and textures fugly. You could tell where it started by a weird texture seam. I was driving alongside what I thought was its border with my homeys and all of a sudden the car disappeared like usual. Only this time it disappeared to the tones of a beautiful *GA-GACK* coming from inside the 360. That didn't sound like fun so I quit to the dash and ejected the disc, and sure enough, two pretty darn big scratches on the edge.

Totally bananas. My 360 apparently suffers from two known 360 issues simultaneously. The funny thing is that this all started after I had insulted Todd Holmdahl. Is it possible he knows the art of black magic? And my PC died too. Luckily it seems like he can't touch the PS3.

Anyhow, I think I'm gonna have to send this one in before I get the RLOD. Don't wanna risk it scratching any games I actually care about. I think there's a possibility I might run into trouble though. Even though I live in Sweden, Microsoft apparently refuses to acknowledge the disc scratching issue...

Todd Holmdahl should be insulted as much as possible. Anyone who has that little respect for the Xbox userbase should not be giving interviews or saying anything that can be heard by the community.

Why give an interview where you cannot answer a single question in a honest and straightforward manner? Does he think that his answers to the questions asked of him were acceptable in any way? Was this a respectable way to address the userbase of the 360 who pay his salary? Did he think anyone would not get incensed by his tactic of answering hardware failure questions by referencing attach rates for games accessories?
 

Phthisis

Member
Kolgar said:
So can we lay down some "best practices" for keeping our 360s alive?

Had mine since December (May 06 manufacture date) and I've had very few problems. It's frozen a couple times playing Oblivion (I've clocked 91 hours on that game), and once while playing Castlevania: SotN. Otherwise everything has been dandy.

I keep it horizontal on top of my entertainment center, open on all sides. Last week it was like 90 degrees and very hot in my room, so I faced a room fan into the open port on the bottom and it really helped the heat dissipation (you couldn't even feel the hot air unless your hand was touching the plastic).

The only thing that might be worrisome is that I can hear the expansion and contraction of components inside right after I turn it on and right after i turn it off (and sometimes in the middle of the night). Who knows, maybe I was lucky and my Chinese manufacture team were working for bonuses that week :)
 

Speevy

Banned
I think 360s are living but people are dying before telling the story. Or at least, I'm sure one person has died...of something. It stands to reason.
 

Piper Az

Member
I don't understand how people are enjoying their 360s, knowing or fearing that one day they're going to break. And all these ways to "safegaurd" the console should not be considered if the quality is good. I don't think I ever turned on my Ataris, or Nintendos, Segas or Xbox1, worrying about if it's going to break any moment. Complete FUD was experienced when I bought that Xbox 360...and I just could not stomach it while playing its games (is it getting hot? does it sound funny? is it abnormally loud today? etc)
 

WTFing

Banned
tha_con said:
My question is how many of you are willing to vote with your wallets and not buy / repair your 360's? While I understand you probably will never get your money back on purchased games and accessories, how many of you would be willing to 'force' MS (per se) to finally look into the problem and acknowledge it?

While I know the impact this would have is extremely minimal and would have no real world application, nor would it effect the business practices of MS so long as the 360 continues to sell well, I wonder how many people are 'bitter' enough to do this.

I don't think I would, lol.
Still waiting for my 360. You can be sure that I will not spend a single € on MS hardware or software. I already canceled Xbox LIVE, and like i told them i don't need their ****ing free LIVE cards, i am not a begger. As soon as my console is back a special 'treatment' is waiting for this bitch. Be sure that I'll play ALL the games that are coming, i'll borrow them ALL, yes i'll borrow them ALL :lol :lol :lol I know the impact is minimum, but MS can't spit on my face forever. Another thing i hope/wish is to have a place where i can talk and touch a human being from MS, because it's too easy to open your ****ing mouth behind a phone and tell me "we are sorry". Seriously i want to Zidane someone from MS 360. I wonder why the Repair Center is in Germany, bring it to Paris please ... SONS OF BITCHEZ
Edit: removed an overreaction
 

OniShiro

Banned
After my console died I managed to fix it by doing a lot of internal modifications, the funny thing is a friend of mine asked me to do the same to his 360 though it works fine because he barely uses his 360 due to his fear of the 3RLOD.

I think it's a very very bad sign for microsoft when people start being afraid of using the 360 in case it breaks.
 

Bildi

Member
OniShiro said:
After my console died I managed to fix it by doing a lot of internal modifications, the funny thing is a friend of mine asked me to do the same to his 360 though it works fine because he barely uses his 360 due to his fear of the 3RLOD.
As soon as mine is out of warranty (a couple of months), I'll be modifying the bastard to make sure it doesn't break down.

I'm getting less and less afraid of the 3RLD on my 3rd console which is a few weeks old, but in reality it's only a matter of time. I kind of hope it doesn't die within the warranty because then I'll send it back and have another three months of fear. Once I've fixed it, I'll no longer live in fear. Microsoft should use that as a catch phrase:

XBOX360. Fear it.
 
There is one positive aspect about a persistent X360 console failure rate... it allows people to effectively troll a console non-stop without fear of a NeoGAF ban.

Personally, I think truth trolling is still trolling. But that's just me.
 

Bildi

Member
B-Rad Lascelle said:
There is one positive aspect about a persistent X360 console failure rate... it allows people to effectively troll a console non-stop without fear of a NeoGAF ban.

Personally, I think truth trolling is still trolling. But that's just me.
Thing with trolling is that its purpose is to aggravate people, poke them, get a bite out of them etc...

People in here are frustrated and pissed off and so vent amongst themselves. They're not looking for a bite or things like that. When someone comes in extolling the virtues of the 360 and how they and their 10 friends all have functioning consoles (ie a bit of a fanboy and hence a prime candidate for being trolled), people in here just want them to go away. We don't troll them. We just want to simmer in our own disappointment.
 
My friend runs a store that has 35 XBOX360 stations. He's been open for 10 months and has had 20 360s returned and exchanged due to malfunction.

Luckily for him, he bought them all at Costco and they do a direct exchange thing.
 

Ponn

Banned
Bildi said:
Thing with trolling is that its purpose is to aggravate people, poke them, get a bite out of them etc...

People in here are frustrated and pissed off and so vent amongst themselves. They're not looking for a bite or things like that. When someone comes in extolling the virtues of the 360 and how they and their 10 friends all have functioning consoles (ie a bit of a fanboy and hence a prime candidate for being trolled), people in here just want them to go away. We don't troll them. We just want to simmer in our own disappointment.

Actually with your pretty spot on definition of trolling those that do come in threads like this trying to say theirs work fine, the problems are a hoax, etc etc are actually the trolls.

Which for this type of thread, I would agree with. Anyone that has had to put up with this knows its not fun.
 
Posted this in the "my 360 Elite died" thread, but figured I'd post it here as well.


I bought a 360 Elite about 3 weeks ago and I've got a few days left to decide if I'm going to buy the $80.00 two-year warranty from Best Buy. I have planned on buying it all this time, but I got to thinking; If I swap my system out at Best Buy, what happens to everything on my hard drive?

I assume that I'd have to return the HDD with the system. Or can I keep it? Other than save games, is everything that I download attached to my XBL account? And is my account easily transferable? Etc, etc.

If someone can just give me a quick rundown of the MS warranty versus a retail warranty, it would be appreciated.
 
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